Archives - 04 September 2011, Sunday

may have faded from the news cycle, but the radioactive waste it left behind isn't going anywhere. At the Saitama sewage treatment plant, 169 miles from Fukushima, workers are dealing with tons of radioactive sewage, Al Jazeera reported. Without any training with radioactive materials...

Another big chunk of funding will go to overcome cost and efficiency barriers that are keeping promising prototypes for new solar cell technology locked away in the laboratory (new technology that performs well in the lab prototype phase tends to lose a lot of efficiency when translat...

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Clusters of yellow lights on the Indo-Gangetic Plain reveal numerous cities large and small in this astronaut photograph of northern India and northern Pakistan. Of the hundreds of clusters, the largest are the capital cities of Islamabad, Pakistan, and New Delhi, India. (For scale, t...

Despite the near-total collapse of the housing market in the U.S. in the last few years, there has been a relatively rapid adoption of solar power among some homebuilders, as well as a much greater focus on energy efficiency in new homes. More home developers are now offering solar en...

The U.S. News & World Report recently evaluated and ranked 20 different diets based on the ease of the regimen, level of nutrition, safety, and their effectiveness for combating obesity, diabetes, and heart disease . Topping their list is the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (D...

I had a fascinating conversation yesterday with Mark McAfee, founder of Organic Pastures Dairy Co., an organic raw milk dairy farm in Fresno, CA. Among the many topics we discussed was what McAfee calls the “second wave” of the organic food movement. As you’re probably aware, many lar...

Clusters of yellow lights on the Indo-Gangetic Plain reveal numerous cities large and small in this astronaut photograph of northern India and northern Pakistan. Of the hundreds of clusters, the largest are the capital cities of Islamabad, Pakistan, and New Delhi, India. (For scale, t...

World's largest beef company signs Amazon rainforest pact (04/29/2011) The world's largest meat processor has agreed to stop buying beef from ranches associated with slave labor and illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, according to the public prosecutor's office in the state...

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Sadly, executions in Texas are no rare occurrence. Rick Perry, the current Republican governor and presidential hopeful, has presided over more executions than any governor in the modern history of execution . One impending execution, though, is making headlines, because the man set t...

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Getting kids back to school can be a huge expensive burden on families. The pressure to purchase supplies and home décor for school kids, often negates the best eco-friendly intentions. How about we take action and make back to school a time when the environmental three Rs (reduce, r...

Before Sarah Palin gave her speech at the Tea Party-affiliated Restoring America rally in Indianola, Iowa, on Saturday, Los Angeles-based comedian Eric Golub told a joke comparing liberals to “special needs children.” Palin’s youngest son, Trig, has Down Syndrome, and she has previo...

The day I turned 25 years old I headed straight to the store and bought loads of different ultra pricey skin creams. I was sure this would keep me wrinkle-free. By 30 my tone had changed. I began to realize that while I still wanted to look young and vibrant, youth came from the insid...

For most of us, the search for the ideal partner has become an obsession: the principle goal in our quest for love. Yet our relationships often peter out after the brief fireworks of romance. Then the false hopes of the mind are exposed for what they truly are – an illusion of yearnin...

Will more efficient energy use just make us want to use more? Photo: Vicky van Santen Cross-posted from Cool Green Science . I recently had the chance to participate in a panel about energy efficiency at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. I expected the usual discussion of all the ...

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September 4, 2011 at 8:56AM by Jim DiPeso | comment Senate Bill 398 would codify "consensus" energy efficency standards that equipment manufacturers, environmental organizations, and consumer groups have agreed to. The Georgia Tea Party opposes the bill, arguing that it would have a "...

Clusters of yellow lights on the Indo-Gangetic Plain reveal numerous cities large and small in this astronaut photograph of northern India and northern Pakistan. Of the hundreds of clusters, the largest are the capital cities of Islamabad, Pakistan, and New Delhi, India. (For scale, t...

Researchers from the UK and Colombia say their meta-analysis of seven studies focused on chocolate and a reduction in heart disease shows eating small amounts of chocolate could reduce the risk of heart disease by 37%, and the risk of stroke by 29%. “Although overconsumption can have ...

In December of 2009, UC Berkeley, ICF International and Stanford experts had this to say about the feasibility of compressed air versus chemical fuels , as an energy storage medium: “The study concluded that even under highly optimistic assumptions the compressed air car is less effic...

One of the most encouraging aspects of the emerging low carbon economy is that nothing needs to be invented to virtually decarbonise our businesses and infrastructure. We still need to invent a greener form of aviation and more work needs to be done to cut emissions from a number of h...

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Written by Laura Bridgeman , a blogger for the Earth Island Journal As our bus pulled into the parking lot across from “The Cove”, which many of you have seen in the in the Oscar-winning documentary bearing that name, we immediately knew that our efforts had been a success. The normal...

Cotton harvesting in Texas, USA; unloading freshly harvested cotton. Image credit:Wikipedia Soon it will be time to harvest some political outcomes of the ongoing extreme drought conditions down South. Here's a climate-impact snapshot of how things stand in the Southern Plains states ...

Its disheartening to watch any American small businesses fall by the wayside as corporate conglomerates continue to expand and dominate both rural and metropolitan America. The angst is amplified, however, when a living piece of our American tradition falls to such a fate. One of the...

Clusters of yellow lights on the Indo-Gangetic Plain reveal numerous cities large and small in this astronaut photograph of northern India and northern Pakistan. Of the hundreds of clusters, the largest are the capital cities of Islamabad, Pakistan, and New Delhi, India. (For scale, t...

Cotton harvesting in Texas, USA; unloading freshly harvested cotton. Image credit:Wikipedia Soon it will be time to harvest some political outcomes of the ongoing extreme drought conditions down South. Here's a climate-impact snapshot of how things stand in the Southern Plains states ...

2011 USA Innovation Award Winner Carrie Parry. Photo: Carrie Parry For the first time, the UK-based Ethical Fashion Forum (EFF) is bringing their annual sustainable fashion Innovation Award to the United States. On September 12, the winning designers will show their spring 2012 collec...

The search for the right college is a difficult undertaking for any high school student. There are majors to consider, extracurricular activities, sports, religion, study abroad, dormitories, campus locations, and, of course, cafeterias. My college search involved a week-long tour of ...

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Mitsubishi provided an upcoming “external power supply” unit (slated to be available within the year), which the actress hooked up to the i-MiEV’s charging port. Once plugged in, the unit had access to 1500W of cooking power from the MiEV’s battery. With the proper equipment – an indu...

Is this women nuts or braindead? What did she think an abortion was?! I know women that have had an abortion and feel differently about the procedure afterwards (even though they knew what they were doing from the start)... so they just don't have another abortion. They don't blame th...

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Oil Spill From BP's Deepwater Horizon Macondo Field Disaster The Macondo Prospect, where British Petroleum’s ill fated offshore drill rig exploded and sank last year killing eleven men is a reservoir of oil in the Mississippi Canyon area of the northern Gulf of Mexico about 40 miles o...